Given that, he too, still managed to somehow keep and maintain his own back-of-the-knee length locks, Sephiroth might empathize with Saori on more of an equal wavelength than others might. He'd lost a few inches himself once, courtesy of the battles with Hera, but then he'd essentially been reset by crystal stasis not much later.

It had to have been the way he was standing, that the lighting hadn't revealed the tight support bandage bound around half of his torso -firmly encasing one shoulder and half way down one of his arms- as Saori had first looked at him. He didn't seem to be favoring one side or the other though, being left hand-dominant and that side was fine. When prompted he slid the gil pouch across the bar to the new owner of the Saloon.

A light shake of the head dismissed the receipt for it. Better that the whole business be forgotten entirely. But the follow up question Saori posed almost seemed to make him flinch, a slight tensing up almost as if he were to stand to attention, before he caught the gesture and stopped himself over-expressing. He did raise his gaze from where it had been inspecting the grains on the wood of the bar top, though, as he began trying to read between the lines of Saori's expression.

Was it genuine interest or not? It was painful how obvious his emotions were being as of late, and almost punishing to have known that even after nearly a week of that incident he wasn't right still. He was trying to move on.

"It's been...tough." The political answer, for sure. But at least Saori was worth an answer.

"All we can do is move forward."